


and i will wake up happy

by hipsterchrist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bonding, Cybernetics, Developing Friendships, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Recovery, Trauma, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 22:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hipsterchrist/pseuds/hipsterchrist
Summary: They meet after the funeral.So yeah, maybe now Bucky gets emails from a raccoon and a blue meanie.





	and i will wake up happy

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about how Nebula's most tender moments during _Endgame_ were in interactions with Tony, Rhodey, and Rocket, all of whom, like her, use some form of cybernetics as a result of trauma and/or came out on the other side of abuse functional. I just so wished for Nebula to meet Bucky, and I like to think it happened just like this.
> 
> The title comes from the same song Bucky puts on at the end to mess with Sam: "[As I Lay Me Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq-4vIIJO30)" by Sophie B. Hawkins.

They meet after the funeral.

It’s after Bucky has finally convinced Sam that it's okay if he leaves Bucky's side to go talk to other people, people he knows and wants to comfort. He remains within Bucky's line of sight, though, as he hugs Rhodey and greets little Morgan, which is kind of him. Steve, too, stands nearby, out of hearing range but visible, speaking with Thor and T'challa. 

Bucky, like the last remaining weird little cube of cheese on the small platter at the table beside him, stands alone.

It's the raccoon who approaches him, towing the rest of the space brigade along behind him. Bucky's eyeing Pepper anxiously from a distance, unsure if he should say something to her, or if he should maybe just leave, when he hears a familiar gruff voice from somewhere around his knees. He looks down to see a furry brown face, eyebrows raised.

“So is the gun for sale yet?” he asks. Bucky huffs out a laugh through his nose. 

The gun in question is the first one made in Wakanda in over a century. It was custom built for him by Shuri, who teased him the whole time for his primitive choice of weapon. As deeply as he wished that kind of fighting was behind him then, as strongly as he hopes it is now, the truth is that he could be destitute and still never sell that gun.

“No,” he says. That's when he glances up to notice the blue bionic woman, the girl with the antennae, the brickhouse of a gray-red-green-blue man, the tree, and the guy in too much brown leather. They fall in line behind the raccoon, who follows Bucky's gaze and grunts disinterestedly.

“Guess I'll make the introductions,” and then he does, with no fanfare whatsoever. Nebula, Mantis, Drax, Groot, Quill. “And I'm Rocket, by the way.” 

Bucky knows he doesn't need to remember their names. By the end of this very day, they'll return to space, maybe take Thor with them, and he'll never see any of them again. He knows he doesn't need to remember their names, but he can feel his brain doing it regardless, knows it's filing them away in case he needs them later, in case he needs to kill them. Shuri, T'challa, Okoye, M'baku, and the entire countryside of Wakanda have all helped him, more than he deserves, but he still doesn't trust his own mind, not completely.

It's fine, though. Nebula is a beautiful name anyway.

“How ‘bout that arm?” says Rocket. Bucky looks down again, feels a slow smirk forming on his face.

“You know, truthfully? I could do without it,” he says, because there's no reason not to be honest with strangers he's never going to talk to past the next three minutes. And it is true - he could do without it, _was_ doing pretty well, for over a whole year, on his humble little farm. His goats didn't mind that he fed them one-handed, only that he fed them and let them jump on his back while he tended to the crops they otherwise were never allowed near. M'baku didn't care or even seem to notice, whenever he came down from the mountains to visit Bucky's little house for tea that Bucky poured with one arm, or to cook dinner with his own two, demanding Bucky sit and relax while he did the work.

Some of those dinners and teas were probably dates. There was one that definitely was, named specifically as such after much embarrassed stammering and scheduled for the evening after the battle that turned Bucky to ash. There’s nothing like standing a guy up for five years to ruin something before it got the chance to start. 

“Really? Name your price,” Rocket says, eyes narrowing, but Bucky shakes his head.

“I didn’t say it was for sale.”

“Well, is it?”

“No,” says Bucky. Rocket scowls.

“I’ll get that arm one day,” he says. Bucky wants to ask just what the hell he’d do with it, but it’s likely for the best if he keeps his mouth shut.

“Wait, what’s the deal with your arm?” Quill asks. Bucky sighs and pulls his left hand from the pocket of his jacket. With his bare right hand, he pushes the sleeve up and pulls the glove off in one fluid motion, displaying his shining black and gold vibranium arm up to the elbow. Rocket whistles, eyeing it hungrily.

“Whoa, that looks _awesome_!” Quill exclaims, hands flying out of his own pockets to grab Bucky’s metal wrist for a better look. It’s rude, sure, but Bucky doesn’t really mind.

“Design and manufacturing courtesy of Princess Shuri over there,” Bucky says, nodding toward the corner where Shuri is talking animatedly to Peter Parker, who looks overwhelmed but grateful.

“I am Groot?” asks Groot, curling the twigs that make up his fingers and rapping the wood against the metal like knuckles.

“Looks like vibranium,” Rocket says, standing under Bucky’s outstretched arm and peering up, appraising it. “Not bad for terrans.”

“Vibranium is the best the planet earth has to offer,” Drax says reverently. “You must be a man of great honor and stature.” Bucky lets out a loud, single laugh at that.

“I’m an international war criminal, directly responsible for the murders of dozens and for starting wars and famines and crises that killed millions,” he says, breezing through it all quickly and casually, like it doesn’t still hurt him. “But I am 6 feet tall, so if that counts as great, then sure.”

“Please,” scoffs Rocket, “who among us _ain’t_ kicked off a war or two?” Mantis raises her pale, timid hand.

“Yeah, call us when you’re an inter _galactic_ war criminal,” Quill says defensively. Bucky shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to do with these people.

“I’ll leave that to you guys,” he says with a shrug.

“Well, you’ve outlived your usefulness to me, pal,” Rocket says, and turns away without another word, wandering over to Thor, Steve, and T’challa. Bucky hears him say, “You got a name, Spangles?” but doesn’t catch Steve’s reply as the rest of Rocket’s friends fill out behind him. Bucky laughs without smiling, turns his head to search the room for Sam, and gets a look at Nebula instead.

She alone of her group is unmoved, standing still at his left side, her wide black eyes staring openly at his face. His lips part slightly, but he says nothing. He doesn’t startle, but he simply stares back. He stares back at her long enough for him to learn that she is eerie and beautiful and sparking with delicate danger. It’s not information his brain recognizes as important - he won’t need to remember any of this if he needs to kill her in the future - but he hangs onto it anyway, just for himself. Finally, she speaks.

“What did they do to you?” Her voice is low and rough, like the words are struggling to flow over gravel in her throat.

“Who?” he asks quietly, barely moving his lips. Unseen, unnoticed. Drawing no attention. Even off the ice and away from HYDRA, he can still be a ghost when he wants to be, and sometimes when he doesn’t.

“Whoever did that to you,” answers Nebula, her eye flickering down to his left arm before returning her gaze to his face.

Bucky looks at her and sees what he’s pretty certain she wishes no one would ever see, what she wishes wasn’t there to be seen at all: the machinery in her, on her. He looks at her and knows that, between the two of them, he has it easy. He can hide his with long sleeves and a glove. He can remove it entirely and still be complete. What can she do without a mask? But even with death worked out of his arm, it’s still written in his head. They wrote it deep inside his brain and called it improvement, called it perfecting. He looks at her and sees his own trauma, beyond the metal and technology, and knows she sees it in him, too. She must, if this is what she’s asking.

“Experiments,” Bucky answers after another few silent moments. “They wanted to a create a perfect soldier. They made me an assassin.”

“They made you a killer,” she says. He shakes his head.

“Technically,” he says, thinking back to his army days, belly-down with a rifle on a hilltop, “I already was. But for them, I killed anyone they pointed me toward, and anyone who got in my way.”

“How did they succeed?” Nebula asks after a moment of consideration. Bucky catches movement from the corner of his eye - Steve turning toward him, eavesdropping and concerned at what he hears. Bucky doesn’t look at him, or at the brown furry ears beside him, perked up and just barely visible at the bottom of his field of peripheral vision.

“They brainwashed me,” he says, shrugging. These are just facts. There’s no point in feeling anything about them beyond what they are: facts. “They tortured me. They put code words in my head that gave them control over me.”

“So the havoc you wreaked wasn’t fully yours,” she says. He takes a second to parse it out before responding. 

“I wasn’t fully in control, no,” he concedes, “but I’m still the one who did it. I’m the one who has to live with it.” Nebula glances at his arm again.

“Do you miss who you were, before you were like this?” she asks. The question nearly knocks the wind out of Bucky. 

Does he miss who he was in 1945? Yes and no. _Yes, absolutely_ , and _hell no_. Maybe it’s the wrong question. Does he miss what the world was in 1945? Yes and no, still, but the _yes_ is significantly smaller. Does he miss what he could have given the world if he came back home in 1945? Sure, but he doesn’t even know what that would’ve been, so in many ways, no. Does he wish HYDRA had never found him in the snow in 1945? Does he wish he’d escaped on his own well before 2014? Does he wish, honestly, deep in his heart, that Steve had never come to his apartment in Bucharest and just left him to fend for himself in 2016? Yes, yes, _yes_.

But isn’t his life better here, now? Aren’t the flavors richer, colors brighter, clothes more comfortable? Isn’t the warmth he feels from his friends’ smiles more golden? Doesn’t he close his eyes at night and feel love radiating in and around him, stronger than ever? Would he, at the end of the day, trade any nightmare that jolts him awake in a cold sweat if it meant he never got to see Steve’s face again, to hear Shuri’s laugh, to go into battle alongside Sam, to eat spicy sweet potatoes and fried plantains across a table from M’baku, to feel the relief of safety provided by T’challa? Isn't this the life he fought to the death to keep just a week ago?

If he went to bed tonight and woke up in the past, would he even feel a moment of comfort? This is, he thinks, as he’s told the guy a dozen times, the real difference between Bucky and Steve.

“Not really,” he answers Nebula. Then, because he thinks she needs to wonder herself, he asks, “Do you?” She stares at him, unblinking, for several long seconds before flashing a furtive glance at the rest of her companions from outer space.

“Not really,” she says resolutely. Bucky nods, gives her a small smile. 

“We just live with it somehow,” he says, shrugging again. Nebula almost smiles back.

“We work with what we’ve got,” she says. It sounds like something she heard someone else say once.

“Make the best of it,” he confirms, hoping it sticks to both of them.

Bucky’s best is in Wakanda, probably. His best is in video chats with Steve from the palace. His best is in wading into a fight beside Sam, kicking the back of Sam’s seat just to be a nuisance, letting Sam touch his arm comfortingly because it makes him feel useful. His best is standing next to Wanda at a funeral for a man whose parents he killed, a man who hated him, a man who might still be alive if not for him inadvertently pulling Steve’s loyalty away years ago. His best, maybe, is stealing glimpses at M’baku over a teapot and trying to make sense of the glances he’s receiving in return. His best is in a lab with Shuri, watching her do things he could never hope to understand, punching holes in the wall when she tells him to. His best is in standing here, talking to a broken blue bionic alien, hoping she’s hearing that recovery is long and not linear.

Bucky's best is in other people, the people who trust him despite everything, the people who trust him now, when he still doesn’t even trust himself. He looks at Nebula and knows it’s the same for her as well, that her best is in Rocket, in her sister, in those few weeks on an aimless floating spaceship alone with Tony Stark. Nebula will never look at herself and see her best, but Bucky doesn’t think that will ever bother her. She’s got the shrewdest eyes he’s ever seen in anyone. Of course she knows that the good in her isn’t in her own reflection, but in the good reflected back at her from the people around her.

He’s not worried about her.

A few hours later Bucky stands with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, watching the crew of misfit aliens disperse. Aside from Groot’s slow wave and sweet smile, they mostly don’t acknowledge him as they board their ship, which is just fine with Bucky. He prefers to be unmemorable these days. Rocket, though, clears his throat and tugs at the sleeve around Bucky’s right elbow so that Bucky looks down. He makes Rocket work for it, because he doesn’t know where this is going, and to his credit, Rocket does it, pulls stubbornly at Bucky’s arm until his hand leaves his pocket. There’s a split second where Bucky feels unprotected - he usually wears gloves on both hands, for reasons not totally dissimilar to this - but Rocket reaches up with his paws, opens Bucky’s fist, and presses a little device into his palm before curling his fingers over it again. He pats Bucky’s knuckles.

“We’ll keep in touch,” says Rocket gruffly, almost begrudging, as he gestures to himself and Nebula, standing just a few feet behind him. She’s paused in her walk up the ramp into the ship, looking back at Bucky and Rocket. Bucky looks at her and she nods, exactly once, before continuing her impatient steps.

“I look forward to it,” he says, looking back down at Rocket, because there's no reason not to be honest.

Another hour later, Bucky opens the passenger door of Sam’s car while Sam is saying his longest ever goodbye so far today - to Clint’s wife, Laura, this time - and sees the shield sitting in the seat.

“You sit in the back, Barnes! That thing called shotgun!” Sam yells. Bucky rolls his eyes and picks up the shield with his vibranium hand, places it gingerly in the backseat - in full view of the rearview mirror so Sam can keep an eye on it all he wants - and sits down in the passenger seat. He waits a few seconds until he knows Sam isn’t looking his way anymore and begins pressing buttons on the music player Shuri made for him for his birthday last year. She’d preloaded it with songs he’d missed from around the world over the decades, a playlist for each year, and he’s only now finishing up 2001. He could easily just hit _2002_ and move on, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam waving a final farewell and starting toward the car, and he thinks of what might annoy him the most. He smirks as he chooses a song from _1994_ , turning the volume up just as Sam gets into the car.

“So,” Sam says. Bucky hums.

“So, indeed,” he says. Sam sighs.

“Are you sure you’re--” A sudden whispery high-pitched voice comes over the speakers.

“ _It felt like springtime on this February mornin’_ ,” sings Sophie B. Hawkins. “ _In a courtyard, birds were singin’ your praise._ ”

“I hate you, Bucky,” Sam says with another sigh. Bucky laughs, complete with a smile this time. He leans his head back against the headrest and turns to look at Sam.

“I’m still recallin’ things you said to make me feel alright,” he sings along with the stereo, poorly, his grin distorting the words until Sam groans and rolls his eyes.

“I hate you _so_ much,” he says, turning the key in the engine. “Can’t believe Cap left me with you.”

“He left _me_ with _you_ ,” Bucky says. “He trusts you with me.” It comes out more heartfelt than he wants it to, but it’s not like it isn’t true or sincere, and anyway, they’re leaving a funeral. It’s just that kind of day, Bucky thinks, which is confirmed when Sam says nothing quippy in return, only hums and turns the volume dial lower before shifting gears.

“What’s that?” Sam asks as he begins the slow, winding drive toward town. Bucky looks to where Sam’s pointing - the communicator sits in one of the cupholders. 

“A way to keep in touch with Rocket and Nebula,” he says, picking it up and spinning it between his fingertips. He doesn’t really know how it works, but he and Sam are going to be back in Wakanda by the end of the week, and Shuri will be able to teach him.

“The raccoon and the angry blue girl?” Sam pats Bucky on the knee with alarming exuberance. Bucky looks at him, startled. “You made friends!” Sam says enthusiastically. “All by yourself!” Bucky snorts and shakes his head, leans forward to turn up the music again, louder than before so that Sam yells at him. The communicator lights up within the clutch of his fingers, buzzes softly against the vibranium.

 _New Asgard is a dump_ says red letters on what’s apparently the display screen.

 _I suppose it could be worse, although I don’t know how._ Blue now. Bucky feels himself smiling down at the device, lopsided and amused. It doesn’t even register when Sam turns the stereo off entirely.

He made friends, all by himself.


End file.
